From Farmville to Angry Birds, online gaming can often be a passing fad. So how can games makers re-engage former players? The case study looks at how RJ Games used Facebook to prompt almost half of players to pay more and continue playing.
Case study summary
• Games maker wanted to nudge ‘dormant’ players back into action
• RJ Games analysed gamers to identify 2 types: solo and clan players
• The Facebook campaign successfully re-engaged players and brought RJ Games a 150X return on ad investment as a result
The challenge
Award-winning online games publisher RJ Games specialises in immersive social strategy games with popular titles such as Under Siege, Under Fire and Under Control.
RJ Games wanted to nudge ‘dormant’ players back into action and encourage them to complete in-game purchases.
The solution
RJ Games has traditionally used basic retargeting to spur lapsed players back into action. However, it knew that to increase from reactivated players, a more sophisticated strategy was needed. Using latest release Under Control as a test case, RJ Games began by analysing player behaviour in real-time battles, one-on-one fights and mass clan fighting.
By identifying when and why players went into battle and bought extra weapons, RJ Games was able to narrow its focus to 2 target player types: those who fight one-on-one and those who fight in a clan.
The results
The campaign successfully re-engaged players and brought RJ Games a 150X return on ad investment as a result.
Between December 2015–January 2016, it achieved:
• Over 5% average click-through rate
• 30% increase in activity by retargeted players
• 46% of re-engaged players continued to pay after initial payment
• 150X return on ad investment
Maksim Maksimov, founder, RJ Games, said: “When coming up with a strategy for retargeting, it is very important to pay attention to the benefits and features inherent in your product and identify what will entice players to re-engage with your game. By changing our retargeting strategy from simply targeting lapsed players to considering how those lapsed players use our game and adapting our ads accordingly, we have seen incredible results.”
